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Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch (April 5 1917, Chicago – September 23 1994, Los Angeles) was a prolific American writer. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884, Chicago-1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880, Attica, Indiana-1944, Milwaukee, WI), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho and American Gothic). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America. Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. Early writing career During the 1930s, Bloch was an avid reader of the pulp magazine Weird Tales. H. P. Lovecraft, a frequent contributor to that magazine, became one of his favorite writers. As a teenager, Bloch befriended and corresponded with Lovecraft, who gave the promising youngster advice on his own fiction-writing efforts. Bloch's first professional sales, at the age of just seventeen, were to Weird Tales with the short stories "The Feast in the Abbey" and "The Secret in the Tomb". Bloch's early stories were strongly influenced by Lovecraft, and a number of his stories were set in, and extended, the world of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It was Bloch who invented, for example, the oft-cited Mythos texts De Vermis Mysteriis and Cultes des Goules. The young Bloch even appears, thinly disguised, as the character "Robert Blake" in Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark", which is dedicated to Bloch. In this story, Lovecraft kills off the Bloch character, repaying a courtesy Bloch paid Lovecraft with his tale "The Shambler from the Stars", in which the Lovecraft-inspired figure dies; the story goes so far as to use Bloch's then-current street address in Milwaukee. (Bloch even had a signed certificate from Lovecraft some of his creations giving Bloch permission to kill Lovecraft off in a story.) Bloch later wrote a third tale, "The Shadow From the Steeple", picking up where "The Haunter of the Dark" finished. After Lovecraft's death in 1937, Bloch continued writing for Weird Tales, where he became one of its most popular authors. He also began contributing to other pulps, such as the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. He gradually evolved away from Lovecraftian imitations towards a unique style of his own. One of the first distinctly "Blochian" stories was "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", which was published in Weird Tales in 1943. The story was Bloch's take on the Jack the Ripper legend, and was filled out with more genuine factual details of the case than many other fictional treatments. Bloch followed up this story with a number of others in a similar vein dealing with half-historic, half-legendary figures such as the Man in the Iron Mask ("Iron Mask", 1944), the Marquis de Sade ("The Skull of the Marquis de Sade", 1945) and Lizzie Borden ("Lizzie Borden Took an Axe...", 1946). Politics In 1939, Bloch was contacted by James Doolittle, who was managing the campaign for a little-known assistant attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin named Carl Zeidler. He was asked to work on his speechwriting, advertising, and photo ops, in collaboration with Harold Gauer. They created elaborate campaign shows; in Bloch's 1993 autobiography, Once Around the Bloch, he gives an inside account of the campaign, and the innovations he and Gauer came up with — for instance, the original releasing-balloons-from-the-ceiling shtick. He comments bitterly on how, after Zeidler's victory, they were ignored and not even paid their promised salaries. He ends the story with a wryly philosophical point: ''Psycho'' and screenwriting Bloch became most famous as the author of the novel Psycho, which was adapted by Joseph Stefano into the screenplay for the film of the same name, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. His best-known work as a screenwriter is probably The Night Walker (1964), which he wrote for William Castle, although he also penned several scripts for the original series of Star Trek; he seemed happiest, among his television work, with his contributions to the Boris Karloff-hosted series Thriller. Bloch also contributed to Harlan Ellison's science fiction anthology, Dangerous Visions. His story, "A Toy for Juliette", evoked both the Marquis de Sade and Jack the Ripper. In fact, Ellison's own contribution to the anthology was a direct follow-up of Bloch's, and was titled "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World". Bloch died in 1994. He was cremated and interred in the Room of Prayer columbarium at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Writings on Bloch There is an essay on his work, with particular reference to the novels Psycho and The Scarf, in S. T. Joshi's book The Modern Weird Tale (2001). Joshi examines Bloch's literary relationship with Lovecraft in a further essay in The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004). In addition, Randall D. Larson has authored three reference books about Robert Bloch: The Robert Bloch Reader's Guide (1986, a literary analysis of Bloch's entire output through 1986), The Complete Robert Bloch (1986, an illustrated bibliography of Bloch's writing), and The Robert Bloch Companion (1986, collected interviews). A compilation of Bloch's Cthulhu Mythos fiction, titled Mysteries of the Worm, was published by Chaosium with commentary by Robert M. Price. Books and Media Novels * The Scarf (1947, rev. 1966) * Spiderweb (1954) * The Kidnapper (1954) * The Will to Kill (1954) * Shooting Star (1958) * Psycho (1959) * The Dead Beat (1960) * Firebug (1961) * The Couch (1962) * Terror (1962) * Ladies Day / This Crowded Earth (1968) * The Star Stalker (1968) * The Todd Dossier (1969) * Sneak Preview (1971) * It's All in Your Mind (1971) * Night World (1972) * American Gothic (1974) * Strange Eons (1978) * There Is a Serpent in Eden (1979) * Psycho II (1982) (unrelated to the film of the same name) * Night of the Ripper (1984) * Unholy Trinity (1986) (collects The Scarf, The Couch and The Dead Beat) * Lori (1989) * Psycho House (1990) * The Jekyll Legacy (1991) Short-story collections * The Opener of the Way (1945) **"By Way of Introduction" **"The Cloak" **"Beetles" **"The Fiddler's Fee" **"The Mannikin" **"The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton" **"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" **"The Seal of the Satyr" **"The Dark Demon" **"The Faceless God" **"The House of the Hatchet" **"The Opener of the Way" **"Return to the Sabbath" **"The Mandarin's Canaries" **"Waxworks" **"The Feast in the Abbey" **"Slave of the Flames" **"The Shambler from the Stars" **"Mother of Serpents" **"The Secret of Sebek" **"The Eyes of the Mummy" **"One Way to Mars" * Sea Kissed (1945) * Terror in the Night (1958) * Pleasant Dreams: Nightmares (1960) **"Sweets to the Sweet" **"The Dream-Makers" **"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" **"I Kiss Your Shadow" **"Mr. Steinway" **"The Proper Spirit" **"Catnip" **"The Cheaters" **"Hungarian Rhapsody" **"The Lighthouse" (with Edgar Allan Poe) **"The Hungry House" **"The Sleeping Beauty" **"Sweet Sixteen" **"That Hell-Bound Train" **"Enoch" * Blood Runs Cold (1961) * Nightmares (1961) * More Nightmares (1961) * Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (1962) * Atoms and Evil (1962) * Horror 7 (1963) * Bogey Men (1963) * House of the Hatchet (1965) * The Skull of the Marquis de Sade (1965) * Tales in a Jugular Vein (1965) * Chamber of Horrors (1966) * The Living Demons (1967) * Dragons and Nightmares (1968) * Bloch and Bradbury (1969) * Fear Today, Gone Tomorrow (1971) * House of the Hatchet (1976) * The King of Terrors (1977) * The Best of Robert Bloch (1977) * Cold Chills (1977) * Out of the Mouths of Graves (1978) * Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of (1979) * Mysteries of the Worm (1981) ** Demon-Dreaded Lore (Lin Carter) ** De Vermis Mysteriis: A Preface (Robert M. Price) edition ** "The Secret in the Tomb" ** "The Suicide in the Study" ** "The Shambler from the Stars" ** "The Faceless God" ** "The Grinning Ghoul" ** "The Opener of the Way"edition ** "The Dark Demon" ** "The Brood of Bubastis"edition ** "The Mannikin" ** "The Creeper in the Crypt"edition ** "The Secret of Sebek" ** "Fane of the Black Pharoah" ** "The Eyes of the Mummy"edition ** "The Sorcerer's Jewel"edition ** "Black Bargain"edition ** "The Unspeakable Betrothal" ** "The Shadow from the Steeple" ** "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" ** "Terror in Cut-Throat Cove" ** "Philtre Tip"edition ** "After Word" * Midnight Pleasures (1987) * Lost in Space and Time With Lefty Feep (1987) * The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Volume 1: Final Reckonings (1987) * The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Volume 2: Bitter Ends (1987) * The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Volume 3: Last Rites (1987) * Fear and Trembling (1989) * Screams (1989) * The Early Fears (1994) * Robert Bloch: Appreciations of the Master (1995) * Flowers from the Moon and Other Lunacies (1998) ** "Introduction", by Robert M. Price ** "The Druidic Doom" ** "Fangs of Vengeance" ** "Death is An Elephant" ** "A Question of Identity" ** "Death Has Five Guesses" ** "The Bottomless Pool" ** "The Dark Isle" ** "Flowers From the Moon" ** "He Waits Beneath the Sea" ** "Power of Druid" ** "Be Yourself" ** "A Sorcerer Runs for Sheriff" ** "Black Bargain" ** "A Bottle of Gin" ** "Wine of Sabbat" ** "Soul Proprietor" ** "Satan’s Phonograph" ** "The Man Who Told The Truth" ** "The Night They Crashed the Party" ** "Philtre Tip" * The Lost Bloch: Volume 1: The Devil With You! (1999) * The Lost Bloch: Volume 2: Hell on Earth (2000) * The Lost Bloch: Volume 3: Crimes and Punishments (2002) * The Reader's Bloch: Volume 1: The Fear Planet and Other Unusual Destinations (2005) Non-fiction * The Eighth Stage of Fandom (1962) * Out of My Head (1986) * Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorized Autobiography (1993) Footnotes de: es: Category:Writers Category:Lovecraft Circle Category:Deceased (Real World) Category:Cthulhu Mythos writers